Customer Service vs. Customer Success vs. Customer Care vs. Customer Experience: suddenly we're immersed in a sea of terms related to how to deal with our customers.
If you're confused about what each of these terms means, don't worry, you're not alone. These terms, being relatively new, can cause some confusion.
The spotlight has long been on the customer, which partly explains the emergence of so many methodologies on how to put the customer at the center of the business.
Although related, these concepts don't mean the same thing. However, their close relationship creates some uncertainty when defining each one.
With that in mind, we decided to bring together all these terms and define them in a simple and objective way, so that you never get lost in this “alphabet soup” again.
What is Customer Service
Customer Service is proactive advice for making good purchasing and usage decisions.
Customer Service is assistance that a company offers to help buyers or potential customers with the purchase or use of the company's products and services, satisfying their needs before, during, and after a sale.
Customer Service is proactive. It seeks to understand your customers' needs so you can act before a question arises and ensure the best possible experience.
In other words, instead of waiting for a customer to ask for help, they're ready to resolve future questions or issues before they arise. This is unlike support, which acts reactively to a customer's problem or question.
What is Customer Care?
Customer Care is how well customers are served while interacting with the brand.
In other words, the company adopts the stance of not only selling, but also caring for its customers, listening to their needs and making them feel valued and respected by the brand.
Customer care is more than offering a complimentary cup of coffee while the customer waits. It's putting yourself in their shoes and caring for them, identifying their problems or desires and delivering the right solution for each customer.
Ultimately, as customers feel cared for and respected, an emotional connection begins to build between the brand and the customer. Customer Care ensures that each customer feels unique when served by the company.
Check it out: Customer Effort Score: Measuring customer effort
What is Customer Success?
Customer Success is putting your customer's goals first.
Customer Success is when a company adopts the stance that its success will come as a consequence of its customers achieving their desired results. The company positions itself as a partner to its customers.
The Customer Success team truly focuses on the customer and how that customer can succeed, rather than solely on how the company can succeed. To achieve this, Customer Success aligns the customer's goals with the company's to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.
Customer Success also involves simultaneously expanding value for both the customer and the business. Working proactively, it helps customers get the most value from a product or service, working closely with sales, marketing, and the solution team to achieve this goal, and increasing upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
Check out this super complete article on: Customer Success: what is it and why adopt this strategy?
What is Customer Experience?
Customer Experience is the journey of a customer's interactions with a brand.
Customer Experience is the sum of all touchpoints, from the initial discovery and research of a product or service, through customer service and after-sales service. This includes social media, packaging, marketing campaigns, website design, and the use of the product or service.
Customer Experience is how your customer feels when interacting with your brand, and this involves operational functions (related to the performance of your solution), emotional (related to the bonds created) and expression (perceived personal values).
Customer experience also means proactivity; the company is always looking for optimizations to improve the customer journey before they become dissatisfied. Its methodology isn't about putting out fires, but about identifying potential flashpoints and preventing them from catching fire.
Check out: What is Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)?
Let's recap what each term means:
- Customer Service is proactive advice for making good purchasing and usage decisions.
- Customer Care is how well customers are served while interacting with the brand.
- Customer Success is putting your customer's goals first.
- Customer Experience is how they feel when interacting with your brand.
Which one should you worry about?
Well, besides the word "customer," all these methodologies have something else in common. Broadly speaking, they aim to reduce costs and increase customer retention, and the customer is at the center of the entire strategy.
Therefore, our advice is: start with what is easiest for you - what is within your reach - and what you can do now, without having to move large resources.
Want a tip? Start with your customer. Listen to what they have to say, and then you'll know what your next step will be.
Check out: How to improve customer experience using reviews (online evaluations) from your customer
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